Legislature(2005 - 2006)BELTZ 211
05/06/2005 03:30 PM Senate STATE AFFAIRS
| Audio | Topic |
|---|---|
| Start | |
| HB94 | |
| HB277 | |
| Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
| + | HB 94 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| + | HB 277 | TELECONFERENCED | |
CSHB 94(FIN)am-ELECTIONS/VOTERS/POLITICAL PARTIES
CHAIR THERRIAULT announced the committee would take up HB 94. He
noted that Senator Davis had offered Amendment 1 and asked her
for a motion.
3:03:40 PM
SENATOR DAVIS motioned to adopt Amendment 1 [R.1].
24-GH1048\R.1
Kurtz
05/06/05
A M E N D M E N T
OFFERED IN THE SENATE BY SENATOR DAVIS
TO: SCS CSHB 94(STA), Draft Version "R"
Page 34, following line 5:
Insert a new bill section to read:
"* Sec. 60. AS 15.60.010(23) is amended to read:
(23) "political party" means an organized group
of voters that represents a political program and that
(A) [THAT] nominated a candidate for
governor who received at least two [THREE] percent of
the total votes cast for governor at the preceding
general election [OR HAS REGISTERED VOTERS IN THE
STATE EQUAL IN NUMBER TO AT LEAST THREE PERCENT OF THE
TOTAL VOTES CAST FOR GOVERNOR AT THE PRECEDING GENERAL
ELECTION];
(B) [IF THE OFFICE OF GOVERNOR WAS NOT ON
THE BALLOT AT THE PRECEDING GENERAL ELECTION BUT THE
OFFICE OF UNITED STATES SENATOR WAS ON THAT BALLOT,
THAT] nominated a candidate for United States senator
who received at least two [THREE] percent of the total
votes cast for United States senator at the preceding
general election or at the most recent general
election at which a governor was elected; [THAT
GENERAL ELECTION OR HAS REGISTERED VOTERS IN THE STATE
EQUAL IN NUMBER TO AT LEAST THREE PERCENT OF THE TOTAL
VOTES CAST FOR UNITED STATES SENATOR AT THAT GENERAL
ELECTION; OR]
(C) [IF NEITHER THE OFFICE OF GOVERNOR NOR
THE OFFICE OF UNITED STATES SENATOR WAS ON THE BALLOT
AT THE PRECEDING GENERAL ELECTION, THAT] nominated a
candidate for United States representative who
received at least two [THREE] percent of the total
votes cast for United States representative at the
preceding general election or at the most recent
general election at which a governor was elected;
[THAT GENERAL ELECTION] or
(D) has registered voters in the state equal in number to at least
one-half of one [THREE] percent of the total number of voters registered in
the state in the month that the director performs verification of party status
as set out in AS 15.60.008(c) [VOTES CAST FOR UNITED STATES
REPRESENTATIVE AT THAT GENERAL ELECTION];"
Renumber the following bill sections accordingly.
CHAIR THERRIAULT objected. He asked for verification that the
amendment would basically reinsert what was Section 57 in the
House Version. The only difference occurs on page 2, line 7 of
the amendment. He noted that the amendment follows Mr. Sykes'
recommendation for recognizing political parties. It proposes
one-half of one percent.
He asked if there was further explanation.
SENATOR DAVIS replied further explanation is on the memo she
distributed. She remarked it seems fair because it would take
fewer votes for a political party to be recognized.
3:05:41 PM
CHAIR THERRIAULT mentioned that the current statutory language
was established last year and was based on court findings that
the 3% standard is supportable. He opposed the amendment because
he wanted to wait to determine the impact of the 3% standard.
SENATOR DAVIS asked what the standard was before 3% was
established.
CHAIR THERRIAULT asked Mr. Balash to come forward.
JOE BALASH, Staff to the Legislative Budget and Audit Committee,
explained that the 3% standard was applied to the governor race
so the opportunity to qualification for party status came up
every four years instead of on an ongoing basis.
The action last year established the cascading test of looking
at statewide races. He recalled that Mr. Sykes said the 3%
standard was taken up in 1996, but he had no independent
knowledge of that.
CHAIR THERRIAULT explained that a change was made last year
because the 3% test was based on the gubernatorial election,
which occurs only every four years. The change established that
if it was not a gubernatorial year then the US Senate race would
be considered and if that race was not on the ballot then the US
Representative race would be considered.
MR. BALASH agreed.
CHAIR THERRIAULT added that if you're attempting to measure a
modicum of support then you want to look at the race that
attracts the most voter participation.
SENATOR DAVIS asked if a party could qualify every year.
CHAIR THERRIAULT replied there would be a race every two years.
3:09:16 PM
LAURA GLAISER, Director of the Division of Elections, clarified
that there are always two options by which a party can maintain
their status. The governor race is the qualifying race, but the
percentage of voters that a party has registered to its
affiliation is an additional means to attain or retain status.
Both the House Version and Version R sustain that fact, she
said.
SENATOR DAVIS questioned how many states use the same percentage
that's in current law.
MS. GLASIER responded she wasn't sure and then reiterated that
in the most recent court decision the Alaska standards were
determined to be fair. She provided the additional information
that not all states offer two ways to maintain or retain status.
3:12:19 PM
CHAIR THERRIAULT found there was no further debate on Amendment
1. He maintained his objection and called for a roll call vote.
Amendment 1 failed 2 to 2 with Senators Elton and Davis voting
yea and Senator Huggins and Chair Therriault voting nay.
3:13:16 PM
CHAIR THERRIAULT asked Ms. Glaiser if the bill needed any
further clarification.
MS. GLAISER responded she had distributed a sheet titled "What
Must a Party Do To Nominate Without Petitioning?" to address the
question Senator Elton asked about what other states do. In
addition he asked about qualification as a party under current
law compared to qualification under the House Version. She
pointed to a table with that information.
3:14:30 PM
SENATOR ELTON reviewed the table and remarked that there appears
to be no difference between the versions with regard to which
parties would have qualified.
MS. GLASIER responded she reads the table differently. More
parties qualify under the House Version. The difference comes
when you test in different races to get the percentage of votes.
SENATOR ELTON explained how he was reading the table and
reiterated that the results appear to be the same under either
version.
MS. GLASIER explained what the table was meant to demonstrate
and said, "If the only test in this state were the percentage of
those who voted either in a race or who had registered voters,
those would be the three parties that have qualified year after
year - the 'AIPs' the 'Ds' and the 'Rs'."
3:17:08 PM
CHAIR THERRIAULT asked Mr. Thompson to testify.
3:17:30 PM
MYRL THOMPSON, Susitna Valley, said he was testifying for
himself. He observed that the version of HB 94 that passed the
House was a very good bill. However, he said, big problems have
emerged since Version R was introduced. Specifically, Sections
11,12, and the new paragraph in Section 13 present a problem.
This appears to be a return to the 1990s when there was an
infusion of soft money in Alaska politics. That's going in the
wrong direction, he emphasized.
This trend toward soft money works against the majority of the
registered voters in Alaska because 51% of those voters have
elected not to be a member of a party. Although the Republican
Party is the largest party in the state, it is comprised of just
over 25% of the registered voters. By no stretch of the
imagination can the proposed provisions benefit the people or
the voters of Alaska, he emphasized.
"This is a very bad addition to what was a very good bill," he
concluded.
3:22:04 PM
SENATOR HUGGINS asked him to expand on what he took particular
exception to in Section 11.
MR. THOMPSON pointed to sub-subparagraph (vi) on page 10, lines
17 through 19. It's the bolded and underlined part, he said.
The same language is included in Section 12 subparagraph (B) and
Section 13 defines "party building" in paragraph (17). The
latter is problematic since the majority of the state has
elected not to be a member of a political party. All three
sections invite soft money. Although campaign finance reforms
are needed, this is going the wrong way.
3:23:07 PM
CHAIR THERRIAULT pointed out that language at the end of
paragraph (17) in proposed Section 13 specifically excludes both
express and electioneering communications. This money could
neither be used for elections ads nor could it flow through the
party to candidates to run elections ads. With that in mind,
which of the functions listed in paragraph (17) do you find
problematic, he asked.
MR. THOMPSON acknowledged that he was generalizing when he
included Section 13 in his response to Senator Huggin's
question.
CHAIR THERRIAULT pointed out that the money that is raised under
Sections 11 and 12 are tied together and Section 13 controls the
activities.
MR. THOMPSON responded he reads it as soft money and he'd like
to be corrected if he's wrong.
CHAIR THERRIAULT explained that soft money could be used to
register voters, organize precinct meetings, district picnics
and things of that nature. Soft money could not be used for
advocacy on a candidate's behalf, advertising and things of that
nature.
MR. THOMPSON responded it would benefit parties, but the
majority of voters in Alaska who aren't in a major party
wouldn't be benefited.
3:25:54 PM
SENATOR ELTON remarked he tended to agree with Mr. Thompson's
testimony. Furthermore, a consequence of Section 13 is that hard
money would be freed to conduct the other activities Mr.
Thompson is concerned about.
CHAIR THERRIAULT asked Mr. Balash to refresh members on the
federal limitations that were discussed in previous testimony.
MR. BALASH discussed the federal law first. He explained that as
a result of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA), the
activities of a state party fall under the auspices of the FEC
code. That is because every election has at least one federal
race - for congressman. That means that a state party must use
federal or hard dollars for any activity in the 60 days before a
primary election and in the 60 days before a general election.
CHAIR THERRIAULT recapped that the restrictions in that 120-day
period must follow the federal law, which prohibits the use of
soft money for those purposes.
SENATOR ELTON asked if that is in any race.
MR. BALASH clarified that the state party may not use soft money
because everything it does benefits the federal candidate. He
noted that because of BCRA, all the money that the Alaska
Democratic Party received from the Democratic Senatorial
Campaign Committee (DSCC) in the 2004 election had to be hard
money
SENATOR ELTON questioned whether soft money couldn't be used to
free hard money for use in a state legislative race.
MR. BALASH answered the hard money would be used to cover all
state party expenses in the 120-day period. The state law allows
the parties to give hard dollars to candidates, to make
independent expenditures, to do voter ID and voter turnout, and
to obtain temporary campaign space.
SENATOR ELTON said the assumption is that the more soft money
that is used for activities like this, the more hard money there
will be for the activities just described.
MR. BALASH said that's a fair argument.
CHAIR THERRIAULT stated that he didn't have any problem with
using soft money to encourage people to vote and participate in
the process.
He noted that there was testimony that some groups bought all
the available airtime during the campaign last year and thereby
blocked others from advertising. He asked for an explanation of
how those groups got the money to do that.
MR. BALASH said BCRA provided a "carve out" for IRS code 527
organizations meaning there is no requirement for 527s to
disclose where money comes from or how it is spent. The FEC
split evenly when the question was raised and the result is that
527s have no regulation. "Citizens for a Stronger Senate" is one
such organization.
CHAIR THERRIAULT asked what restrictions they have on raising
money and whether they could register people and advocate.
MR. BALASH answered no restrictions and they can do those
activities.
He added that "Americans Coming Together" operated at the
federal level but not in Alaska. They did a comprehensive voter
ID, registration, and contact effort using undisclosed and
unaccountable money. Several organizations reported their
sources publicly, but there is no requirement for that.
3:32:35 PM
SENATOR ELTON stated that he had problems with Sections 11,12,
and 13 in Version R. Others, including the director of APOC have
expressed similar concern. He spoke to his objection:
Less than a decade ago we kind of banned soft money;
we did an appropriate thing under campaign finance
reform. As Joe mentioned yesterday, the Singleton
decision said well, you can't maybe do it the way you
want to do it and then the 9th Circuit Court [of
Appeals] said, well you can.
So what the addition of these sections appears, to me,
to do is go back to the Singleton approach. It's a
rather large paradigm shift in how we have been doing
things. And it's a shift that bothers me because what
we're ending up with is kind of at the last minute
we're making very substantive changes. Not to the way
we conduct elections, but to the manner in which we
regulate the flow of money into campaigns under the
APOC statutes... and that gives me a great deal of
concern.
3:34:56 PM
SENATOR ELTON moved Amendment 2 to strike Sections 11,12, and 13
from Version R. Alaskans have indicated a strong desire to
control soft money and this opens the door to accomplish things
Alaskans aren't prepared to accept, he said.
CHAIR THERRIAULT said, "Your statement would lead one to believe
that you're alleging that soft money can flow through to
campaigns," which is clearly not the case. He didn't understand
why APOC might say that a new source of funding is running into
campaigns because it's still hard dollars.
SENATOR ELTON said he ought not speak on behalf of APOC. When he
spoke with APOC they said they were not okay with the addition
to the election bill. We need to know exactly what their
problems are with the bill rather than having me tell you what I
think their problems might be. For that reason he suggested
moving ahead with the bill in the form that has been thoroughly
vetted. He encouraged a conversation with APOC.
3:37:41 PM
CHAIR THERRIAULT objected to Amendment 2. Finding no further
debate he asked for a roll call vote.
Amendment 2 failed 2 to 3 with Senators Davis and Elton voting
yea and Senators Huggins, Wagoner and Chair Therriault voting
nay.
CHAIR THERRIAULT noted that the bill has at least one more
referral and said that he would contact APOC, but he couldn't
see that the bill changes anything they would have to track.
3:38:42 PM
SENATOR WAGONER motioned to report SCS CSHB 94(STA) and attached
fiscal notes from committee with individual recommendations.
There being no objection, it was so ordered.
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